The year 2015 is announced as “Soil Year” by the United Nations. The previous year’s theme was “Family Farming Year”. However, Turkey’s busy agenda does not give way to social issues such as village habitants, soil and seeds.
Furthermore, besides small farming, traditional food or village produce needs urgent attention. Why? Primarily it is near to...

Kıvanç ATAK
European University Institute, Florence
Is Turkey coming to an end of its dominant-party period? It is not entirely unrealistic to give an affirmative answer to this question. Still, for many observers and commentators alike, the more likely scenario is another term of Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, albeit with an eroding...

The recent years of the AKP rule have been marked by the increasingly polarizing voice of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the current and first directly elected president of Turkey. In the face of opposition and criticism, Mr Erdogan tends to use rhetorical troops that transform his critics into national and/or international conspirators against him and AKP. A much more...

The democratic deficit and inefficiency of public policy making are common issues in the global level, which has been widely addressed over time, and that the participation of civil society in policy processes represents the solution to overcome such problems. Civil society as a concept constitutes an important place in the European political and normative...

As the June 2015 general elections approach all major political parties in Turkey published their election manifestos, which are considered as the “standard accessory of elections in most democratic countries” (Daeubler, 2012: 51).. Theoretically, manifestos play an important role as they ease intra-party communication as well as communication with voters,...

It is hard to state that majority of the Turkish citizens are equally interested in upcoming elections. AKP voters are sure that their party will win yet another election by 40 to 50 %. This confidence partially stems from the typical belief that the standard voter is inclined towards a stable future which is supposed to be associated and represented by the...